Speaker of the House John Boehner denied this weekend there are enough votes in the House of Representatives to pass what is called a "clean" bill to fund the Federal government. A "clean bill," in the context of the current shutdown, would be a bill that authorizes funding of the Federal government without any extraneous provisions, i.e. provisions to de-fund the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. President Obama addressed the Speaker's statement and asked the Speaker send…

   The noted political philosopher Andy Warhol---seriously, the pop-culture artist who made money when he painted a picture of a Campbell's Soup can on canvas and proved, as Marshall McLuhan once wrote, "Art is anything you can get away with"---once observed something to the effect that everyone should have 15 minutes of fame. Americans apparently have taken this notion to heart, as political issues are fed, one at a time, into a media pressure-cooker and occupy the public's limited…

   We shall stream "live" from the Rehab Bar and Grill, 5135 South Emerson, from 11 am to 1 pm. If you head south on Emerson, go through the intersection at Thompson Road. A K-Mart is on the corner. Go south a bit more to the strip center in K-Mart's backyard. Joining us as guest panelists:

   Jeff Kunkel is a well-known occultist; musician, composer and multi-instrumentalist; author, writer and philosopher; historian of tarot cards; and a student of Celtic (not Boston NBA team)…

   Gary Snyder's "Round Table," if you have not heard it, is a political discussion that runs weeknights on "Indiana Talks," roughly from 8:30 to 9. Last night I was privileged to be a guest, along with Pepper Snyder, who co-hosts a show on "Indiana Talks," and Andrew Markle, who is a candidate for Indiana House from the 99th District. At some point our conversation turned to American education. Mr. Markle is under the mistaken impression that Finland, to which many people look and regard as…

   People posted comments yesterday and the day before to the effect nothing has changed for them since the Federal government shutdown. The phenomenon is reminiscent of people in the 1800s scoffed at the notion little organisms they could not see with the naked eye (viruses) or practices in which their people had engaged for centuries (obtaining water downstream from where people deposited human waste) could cause disease. Tuesday seemed like any other day. 

   I would like to point…

   Sometimes aspects of one's life criss-cross, then, more infrequently, they come together to form a nexus.

   Yesterday, at about this time, shortly after 5 a.m., I tried to get onto one the health insurance marketplace for people who live in Indiana. I could not get through. Finally a customer service rep came onto the chat box, apologized for the backlog and asked that I try back later. Later I learned there had been over one million (1,000,000) hits on the website before 7 a.m.…

   As I prepared for yesterday's debate with Andrew Kirch and Miah Akston, I focused on the insurance exchanges and possible rates of premiums under Obamacare, presently scheduled to take effect day after tomorrow. The reasons for the focus were selfish, to a large degree. I have a pre-existing condition, about which I have made no secrets. I blogged a series about multiple sclerosis and the Mini-Marathon last year with a reprise this year. Rates for health insurance will fall. With multiple…

   Public discourse about the Affordable Care Act a/k/a Obamacare has sorely lacked facts. A few weeks ago, on "Civil Discourse Now," Ryan Ripley of "We Are Libertarians" and I engaged in civil and, I thought, informative debate about whether ACA/Obamacare was or is constitutional.  

   Today Miah Akston of "The Uncontrollables" and "Creating Miah" and Andrew D. Kirch will join me from 11 am to 1 pm to discuss/debate/argue generally about ACA/Obamacare.

   There are a lot of…

   I have a pre-existing condition, multiple sclerosis. Sarah is a cancer survivor. We were soaked by health insurance premiums, of almost two grand a month. I got us switched to a PPO last year for a significantly lower premium, under $600 total. One problem is the prescription drug coverage is not nearly as good as what my policy had been. Nonetheless, that monthly number was lowered.

   Since last year, even after we obtained the PPO coverage, I have shopped for major medical…

   Serial killers fascinate the American public. "Silence of the Lambs" is only one example of a work from Hollywood, or whatever geographical location one uses to describe film/TV, that glorifies serial killers. Fascination does not equate with cheerleading, but some parts of that fascination overlap. Jack the Ripper might have been the first serial killer to gain notoriety. More recently, when Ted Bundy was tried, he had groupies who sat in court each day and hung on his every word and…

   Whether the color is blue, an example I used last week, or red, as I shall use today, the question still is the same. Do States, or their political subdivisions such as counties and cities, have power, under the United States Constitution, to outlaw whatever conduct they wish under so-called police powers of the States? I use the color red today as I found studies that have determined the color red can cause some people to become angry. I will address that in a moment.

   Paul…

   An aspiring but ultimately (at best) mediocre Austrian artist attempted to take over Germany in a Munich beer hall. Adolf Hitler learned from the experience. Later he sought to take over Germany---finally becoming a citizen along the way---by using the system. Although his National Socialist Workers Party, the nickname for which, "Nazi," derived from the acronym of German words, at first garnered few followers and not many more votes, ultimately, Hitler succeeded in his quest. Hitler's…

   Ruth Patchett Collins and I were in grade school together, maybe as far back as first grade. (I would say what elementary school that was, but since "first elementary school" is a clearance question for credit cards, I'll pass.) She was one of those kids with whom we migrated up the chain and closer to the door and graduation. I had not heard from her, nor she from me, since we left school way back when. The wonders of Face Book as they are, we friended (a noun converted to a verb) each…

   When Hoosier (by relocation, not birth) Richard Gatling developed the Gatling gun, the first rapid-fire weapon for combat, it is said he thought his invention would bring an end to war. He could not believe people would wage war in the face of such an awesome weapon. Gatling had no appreciation for human folly.

   Gun violence has been in the national and local news. People were mowed down in D.C. and in Chicago. Whether the weapon du jour, the AR 15, was used by the gunman, it…

   The first I heard of Black Sabbath was as the punch line for a couple of jokes by Cheech and Chong in 1973. A short time later I had 8-track tapes of "Master of Reality" and something else. Ozzy and the boys played definitive heavy-metal. The tape-deck in the 1962 (or was it a 1961?) Ford Econoline van I drove was hooked up to big speakers in the back, the walls of which were painted flat-black. The speakers were loud, albeit not as loud as the sound systems most teenagers or early-20s…

   I like the color blue. For several years when I worked at Purdue University, then Northwestern University School of Law, then again at Purdue in those schools' libraries, I usually wore any of half-a-dozen powder-blue Oxford shirts I owned. The way in which the color blends with blue jeans never has been a consideration, although I like the blue there, too.

   If in the next weeks the City-County Council of Indianapolis and Marion County were to pass an ordinance, and Indy's…

   The image of NASCAR, a/k/a American stock car racing, in the 1960s was of people grabbing real "stock" cars---as one would buy off the showroom floor---wheeling them into garages, souping them up, and racing them on dirt tracks or the beach of Daytona (okay, that ended a while back) or on some track in the South. Compared to cars raced at the Indianapolis 500, and any tracks in a USAC circuit built to sustain races, for cars made for the Indy 500, for the rest of a "season" until the next…

   The attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, were tragic. That is an opinion, but one held by many from nearly every political viewpoint. Deaths and massive destruction are terrible. On this day 12 years ago, we watched TV depictions of aircraft that flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon. We heard reports of the aircraft in Pennsylvania that dove from tens of thousands of feet and crashed into the countryside of Pennsylvania.

   An odd week…

   In the lead-up to the United States invasion of Iraq, the George W. Bush administration gave reasons for "regime change" that resulted in tens of thousands dead, billions in national debt and significant loss of international goodwill---difficult to quantify,but from all signs after 9/11 many nations and people in the World expressed sympathy for this country. Questions about evidence of "weapons of mass destruction"---our purported reason for the invasion---should have been asked more…

   Busts of four former mayors of Indianapolis---all elected since Unigov was enacted (the "whys" of Unigov are for a later blog)---stand on simple posts on the South side of the East wing hallway of the first floor of the City-County Building, not far from the elevators for the Circuit and Superior Courts. The heads of Richard Lugar, William Hudnut, Stephen Goldsmith and Bart Peterson are arrayed in chronological order, left-to-right, as they harmoniously face the same direction. The busts…